Sponsored by: The Varsity Fort Worth

Monday, May 9, 2011

With a weekend off from the conference schedule, the Frogs went up to Stillwater to take on one of the teams that will be among their main competition for hosting an NCAA Regional. We won't know for a few weeks if they're successful in getting the first two rounds of the Tournament here in Fort Worth for the third straight year, but winnings their series against Oklahoma State certainly doesn't hurt those odds.

You've got to feel good about things when your #2 and #3 starters are out with injuries, your ace gets beaten, and you still win a series on the road against a Top 25 team. Even with Winkler's second loss of the year, freshman Andrew Mitchell and Erik Miller (don't look now, but he's almost got that W-L record back to .500) pitched well enough to get the Frogs the series victory against the 3rd place team in the Big 12.

At the plate, Joe Weik had a break-out weekend going 5-for-12 with a double, two home runs, four RBIs, a walk and even a stolen base. One of the big keys to this year's team having a chance to replicate the success of last year's was for Weik to step up the way that Matt Curry did as a senior. He's got his average up to .271 (it was below the Mendoza line for a good while) and is now tied for the team lead in home runs with Rivera and Coats. Speaking of Rivera, he may have found his early season form again as he went a combined 7-for-9 in the last two games of the series. And how about Zac Jordan with the game-winning longball yesterday? That's the kind of two-out hitting that this team will need down the stretch!

By beating the Cowboys 2 games to 1, the Frogs are now 3-0 in weekend series against the Big 12 and are 9-4 overall against the league with just tomorrow night's home game against Baylor remaining.

A couple of other observations:

-I think talking shit about attendance is really, really weak, so I won't do it. But I was surprised when I looked at the numbers that Oklahoma State, a ranked team in the Big 12 with an enrollment of over 23,000...had 2,309 fans this weekend. Not average...they TOTALLED 2,309 fans entering the stadium over the course of the three days. That's about half of what TCU, with an enrollment about 25% as big, averages for one game. I mean...what the hell else are people doing in Stillwater, Oklahoma?

-First it was Kaleb Merck. Then Matt Purke, then Steven Maxwell. Is Aaron Schultz the next star player to be sidelined with an injury? He was pulled from yesterday's game after the first inning, so we'll keep an eye out to see if he'll be out long. As clutch as he was in the postseason last year, that would be a major blow if he had to miss any extended amount of time.